Bob and Stu, this lack of full utilization of tables has led to complaints of “slow play.” In the streamed match between Garcia and I think Megliano (spelling not correct I think) you could see at least 4 tables open for over an hour. I think this occurs in part due to the time allotted for buybacks. Something has to be done about the time allotted for buybacks which can be 12 hours. I know because I lost at 10 pm and had until the next day at 10 am to buy back then the redraw could happen.
There is a system in place such that they can do a partial draw for the next round while the current round is still playing and not all the buybacks are in. If they use that system, they can keep the tables busier. I'm pretty sure they were doing this on Saturday when matches from two rounds were happening at the same time. I think they had also made buyback mandatory by then, so there was no guessing about intent.
If one match gets really far behind, then you can't do a redraw because those players will be two rounds behind. And if one person -- not pointing any fingers -- consistently takes over two hours the TD has to have the gumption to get out a 30-second shot clock. This is mostly a problem when they are down to so few players that the entire round can play at once on the 47 tables. The round cannot go faster than the slowest match plus whatever break you allow between matches.
Even when there are lots of players in the round, you need to be careful to start the snails as early as possible. If you start a snail's match last in the round, everyone else can have a nice, long dinner break.
Here are the longest matches by round on Saturday (Sunday):
Round 5 -- 2:16
Round 6 -- 2:32 Patsura-Sniegocki
Round 7 -- 2:15 Teutscher-Carman
Round 8 -- ~2:10 three matches
Round 9 -- ~2:03 two matches
Round 10 -- 1:54 Meglino-Wallace
Round 11 -- 2:10 Ruuger-Pinegar
Round 12 -- 1:24 Meglino-Patsura speed demons! (Sunday)
Round 13 -- 1:51 Meglino-Patsura back to normal (Sunday)
My conclusion is that unless the matches are sped up for the final rounds, you have to budget two and a half hours per round. I think all players should have at least a 15-minute break between rounds.
For the entire nine ball event, the average match was close to 1:30.
